Trials of a Hero
by Benjamin J Brown
Summary: Michael Shikar never wanted to be a super hero. He just wanted to live his rich party boy life style. But after 2 years of it, he's addicted to the feeling. Now, how will he react when faced with an enemy who is far better than he is, losing his powers and gaining new ones and most of all, dealing with his family. I own nothing.


Valkiry flew around the chamber, the speed nearly causing the green hood on his head to fall back onto the green short sleeved bodysuit he wore, a white stripe running down the inside of his arms and outside of his legs, with a black armoured segment on the outer edge of the stripe. On his hands, he wore short white gloves, a pair of white boots with a pair of green wings on top of them, black soles on the boots. On his face was a green mask akin to one another of the men in the room, Nightwing, wore. In the centre of Valkiry's chest was the stencil of a white bird, with a black quiver holding white arrows with green wing tips at the back of them.

Valkiry concentrated, his green power ring generating a compound bow in his hand as he pulled an arrow, spinning on his flight axis and firing the arrow at the figure pursuing him, a man with grey, cracked skin wearing a black and yellow body suit akin to something a demon would wear with a tattered black cape wearing a yellow ring. The man fired a blast at the arrow, the energy harmlessly surrounding it as it passed through, impaling the man on the shoulder, as Nightwing took down the figure on his level, charging his escrima sticks with electricity before stabbing them into the mass of brown liquid known as Clayface.

"End simulation." Nightwing said, the figures of the two men they'd been fighting disappearing as Valkiry lowered himself to the ground, his bow disappearing as he lowered his hood, revealing short, spiked black hair "Good workout, Mike."

"Thanks Dick." Mike replied, removing the green mask he wore as Valkiry, his blue eyes sparkling "Told you I'd crack that programme eventually."

"Only took a dozen attempts." Nightwing said, removing his own mask as the two men walked into the locker room, opening their respective lockers "Remind me again why the Guardians deputised you as a Green Lantern?"

"Something to do with overcoming great fear when I started as Valkiry while using that armour that gave me flame powers." Mike shrugged, removing his belt and storing it in his locker while his suit slowly disappeared in a flash of green light, leaving him in a black business suit with a white shirt and green tie "Sure does make changing easier though."

"Yeah, remind me to get one of those." Dick joked as he tossed his Nightwing costume in his locker, pulling on a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt "You doing anything good tonight?"

"The usual." Mike quipped "Standard billionaire playboy stuff. Drive too fast. Crash Luthor's charity gala. The perks of moving to Metropolis?"

"No killer clowns." The two men said in unison with a laugh, Dick continuing "Well, have fun. I've got a date."

"Which one this time?" Mike asked, crossing his arms "Kori? Barbara? One of the dozen other women; I swear, dating you is a pre-requisite for being a woman in our line of work."

"Barbara. What about you?" Dick asked "How are things with you and Helena?"

Mike grimaced. When he'd first entered this world of super heroes, or 'capes' as he often termed them, two years ago, he'd had a brief liaison with Helena Bertinelli, better known as the Huntress. After six months, he'd decided he wanted to pursue it beyond a strictly physical liaison. She'd disagreed. He wouldn't have described himself as heart broken, more shocked; it wasn't every day a woman turned Mike Shikar, owner of Shikar industries, down.

"Talking." Mike finally answered "Just as friends."

"Talking, huh?" Dick crossed his arms "Look, I know it's none of my business-"

"So stop talking."

"Let me finish." Dick said "I know it's none of my business, but you're both my friends. I'm presuming you don't just mean talking?"

"Yes, I do." Mike said "Anyway Dick, it's been a pleasure as all our discussions about women are, but I need to go. I'll catch you later."

Mike walked out of the locker room and up the stairs from the war room to the Watchtower central hub. He quickly walked up the stairs, and to the Metropolis teleporter, punching in the co-ordinates to send him to his penthouse apartment's top floor.

...

When Mike materialised in his penthouse, he looked at the two open cylinders in front of him, each one containing a hooded costume; one the costume he'd worn in his training session with Dick, or his 'basic' costume, the other a panelled, padded suit primarily in black, a green triangle on top of the torso and shoulders, the same white bird symbol as his normal costume, along with the same mask and hood as his normal costume. The belt was the same design as his normal suit, but was white instead of black, with white, clawed mechanical gloves with green energy pulsing in the circular objects at the sides of the gauntlets, the boots being the same as his base suit but more heavily armoured, his 'combat' suit as he referred to it being finished with a green trim to the inner thigh.

He walked past the units, and past his shelving unit filled with boxes containing evidence from past cases. As he reached the bottom, he clicked a button, a hologram appearing and hiding the staircase upstairs. He looked at the wall where two 50 inch HD TV's were mounted, each one showing a muted newsfeed with subtitles on from both Gotham and Metropolis.

He walked out of the room and into his apartment's living room, grabbing his square, wire frame glasses from the coffee table and putting them on before walking out of his front door, closing the door behind him as he walked down to the elevator, pressing the ground floor button, turning on his heel just in time to see a young woman with blonde hair running towards the lift, Mike quickly pressing the hold button.

"Thanks." The woman said in a thick, British accent "I just moved in this afternoon, there's been about eight people just get in the lift and make sure it shut me out."

"They probably all live in apartment 20A." Mike said "Were they around mid teens to early 20s?"

"Yes!" The woman said "You know them?"

"Unfortunately." Mike rolled his eyes "Their parents are this lovely couple, Paula and John. They're away a lot on business, so their kids act up."

"I'll remember that." The woman said, holding out a hand to him "I'm Patricia Jones."

"Michael Shikar. People call me Mike." Mike replied, shaking her hand "So, what brings you to Metropolis?"

"PR. I'm a PR consultant for big businesses. I'm in town doing a job for Lex Luthor." Patricia replied "But right now, I'm looking for a good pizza place. Know any?"

"Joe's round the corner." Mike answered "Literally, out the front doors, take a right, turn right at the end of the block and it's the second door down."

"Thanks." She said, smiling "Care to join me?"

Mike's phone beeped. He looked down at it, quickly opening the text.

_STAR Labs. Now. O._

"Sorry, I've got a business meeting." Mike sighed, holding up his phone "My assistant just texted to remind me. Reign check?"

"Sure." She said, smiling "See you later, Mike."

Mike watched as she walked out, sighing as he pressed the lift control to take him back upstairs.

...

Valkiry flew towards STAR Labs at supersonic speed. He looked down at the ground below, seeing a yellow, blue and black streak moving through the streets below. No doubt it was his 'cousin', Will Michaels. Of course, Will wasn't really his cousin; he was a clone of him, created early in his career by Cadmus. At the time, they thought that Valkiry had Metahuman abilities derived from exobytes. Later, they realised he just had a powered suit. So they used Electricity power Exobytes on the clone to give him electrical abilities, capable of emitting EMP's to take out Valkiry's suit.

In their first meeting, Will had totally eviscerated Valkiry's suit. Following the encounter, Mike went to STAR Labs; they'd acquired a Green Lantern ring for study. Mike had taken it and used it, defeating Will. Following that, Valkiry had acted as one of the Green Lanterns for Sector 2814, and Mike had seen to it that Will got counselling to allow him to fit into society, giving him a new identity and false back story as the estranged son of Mike's deceased uncle.

Valkiry watched as Will, better known to the world as Streak Man, ran round the area, knocking dozens of paramilitary troops down. Valkiry looked around, trying to spot why he'd been called in, before clocking it; there was a chalk white man in a dark blue suit with maroon trunks, boots and cape, a backwards, maroon S on his chest. Bizarro.

Valkiry flew in, putting his fist with his ring on in front of him, creating a battering ram construct as he flew into Bizarro, sending the deformed Superman clone flying. It wouldn't do any real damage, granted, but it would sure give him something to think about.

"Bizarro like you!" Bizarro said in his deep, slow voice "Bizarro let you live!"

Valkiry knew what that meant; with Bizarro's backwards speech patterns, he'd just told Valkiry he intended to kill him. Valkiry lowered to the ground slowly, Streak Man skidding to a halt beside him, his yellow costume having blue underarms, along with blue gloves and boots with black stripes, a dual lightning bolt insignia, a black chevron style belt with a blue under band and a glowing blue triangle, his entire head covered with a yellow mask, a pair of blue goggles with gold lenses covering his eyes finishing the ensemble.

"I think you made him mad." Streak Man quipped, dashing left faster than the eye could see as Bizarro charged the two heroes, grabbing Valkiry by the throat and flying into the air with him "It's fine, I'll just wait down here!"

Valkiry threw a punch at Bizarro's face, hard, regretting it instantly when he felt the pain in his hand, as if he'd just punched a solid titanium wall. He put his ring in Bizarro's face, firing a blast of bright light, the clone yelling in pain as he closed his eyes, dropping Valkiry, who began flying, coming about and pulling an arrow from his quiver without a head, reaching into his utility belt and pulling an arrowhead that appeared to be made of a blue crystal. He quickly attached the arrowhead, creating a construct bow to use, firing the arrow at Bizarro, watching the clone go down.

"Always pack Kryptonite for any occasion." Valkiry said to Streak Man as he landed "Think you can clean up?"

"Let's see." Streak Man said, becoming a blue and yellow streak as he ran around the area, quickly repairing everything, stopping next to Valkiry twenty seconds later "That answer your question?"

Before Valkiry could answer, a purple and yellow beam hit him square in the chest, sending him flying. He looked up at his aggressor. It was a woman, maybe in her early to mid twenties, with long, red hair, wearing a sleeveless pink body suit with a circle cut out, showing her cleavage, a red stripe running down the middle of the suit, a spiked red belt around her waist, along with spiked red boots and gloves, the gloves ending in claws, and spiked shoulder guards. On her face was a pink domino mask, while she held a pair of black short swords.

"She's kind of hot." Streak Man said, getting a scowl from Valkiry "What? She is!"

"Can we focus on the fact that she just shot at me first?" Valkiry asked, charging in, creating a construct chainsaw as he did "We can discuss her hotness later!"

"Glad we agree I'm 'hot.'" The woman said playfully, her accent somewhere between British and American, Australian, maybe "I'm Swordstress. You can just call me death in high heels though."

"That's a bit of a mouthful." Valkiry said with a grin "How about just red?"

"How about you just go down like a good little boy." She said, grinning as she fired another blast, taking him to the ground "To be fair, I'd rather not kill you. But I was paid to retrieve something."

"Who by, Luthor?" Streak Man asked, firing a bolt of electricity at her, narrowly missing "Damn, you're fast!"

"And you should watch your environment." Swordstress replied, firing a bolt at the fence behind Streak Man, which quickly encaged him "Just you and me, green boy."

"No." Valkiry said, firing a giant boxing glove construct at her, sending her flying off "It's just me."

Valkiry descended, grabbing hold of the fence around Streak Man and pulling it apart. He turned around, expecting to see Swordstress still there, but instead seeing her gone. Valkiry punched the palm of his hand before turning and beginning to walk away.

"Damn it!" Streak Man said "I thought-"

"No, you didn't! That's the whole problem!" Valkiry yelled at his 'cousin' aggressively "You never think! You just talk really fast and make stupid mistakes!"

"Whoa, Mike, take it easy." Streak Man said "I'm sorry, okay?"

"Yeah, well, now, she's got away. I'm going home. I'll see you around." Valkiry said, touching two fingers to his ear "Valkiry to Watchtower. I need a level twelve containment crew down here to collect Bizarro. Best send Superman or Supergirl down to supervise. Someone that can beat him down when they pull the blue K from his chest. Valkiry out."

Valkiry didn't say another word, cutting the line before trying to take off. Nothing. He tried again. Still nothing. He looked on, as his ring left his finger, being enveloped in a green ball of light before flying off.

"Oh, so that's how it is?!" Mike yelled as his costume disappeared, leaving him with just the belt, mask and arrows while wearing his business suit "I get angry _once_ and you kick me out?! Fine! Who needs you?"

"Mike, are you okay?" Streak Man asked "I mean, your ring-"

"What do you care?!" Mike yelled "Looks like you're the only super hero in this family now!"

Mike began to walk off, getting round the corner before a ball of red light flew towards him, attaching to his finger, leaving a red ring there. Within seconds, a black bodysuit with red shoulders, white strapped wrist guards and red gloves, with a pair of red boots and white shin guards, a set of red wings attached under each arm like a kind of cape, and a red hood, appeared on his body.

"Michael Shikar of Earth. You show great rage." Said a deep, growling voice "Welcome to the Red Lantern Corps."

**...**

**So, this is my DCUO fic. Fun fact; all of the original characters portrayed so far are characters I play on the game. I decided to follow Valkiry, my main character I play, and am going to admit now; all his character arc in terms of powers reflects how I've played him, having changed to Rage recently. BTW, I recommend trying the power set, it's really good. Anyway, R&amp;R, please no flames. Next chapter; Valkiry: Friend or Foe?!**


End file.
